Warrior Agro

[Flank]

So my question is (proc weapons asside) what holds more aggro?

Faster attacks dealing less damage.

Or just doing more damage?

I only ask cause I've heard conflicting reports and because holding aggro as a warrior sucks ass. I'm using Bull Smasher 1hb 6/20 and Polished Steel Dirk Piercing 8/23. But I can't hold aggro for shit.. should I just buy an executioner's axe and do more damage to hold better aggro? or what? (and yes, i know if i had 2 SSoY's I could hold better aggro.. but im not a quadribillionaire)

[Gorgetrapper]

Depends on your level really. A PGT holds agro because of the proc, and it procs rather early for you (lvl 10). You could go the route of 2 Obsidian Shards, but I never liked them. At 30, if you get your hand on a blued 2 handed hammer, agro shouldn't be an issue because the AE proc does 62 all around, and has high agro. This of course, is only good in groups where you don't have to rely on mezzing.

When I was lower, I found that using the 5/19 claw was pretty good at holding agro as long as you didn't have nuke happy mages.

As you said, ideally, 2 SSoYs is the way to go.

[Mojorisin]

You aren't going to hold aggro until you get a weapon with a decent proc. A popular route is to go with dual obsidian shards. The cheap route is to go with dual Gnoll Hide Lariats(stun whips). They do terrible damage, but they are great for getting aggro. Another decent weapon is a Polished Granite Tomahawk. It's not as good as the ones mentioned above, but it does a decent job at holding aggro, and does better damage than the stun whips.

I am not sure on weapon speed/aggro. I always heard that faster weapons = more aggro, but I'm not positive.

[Flank]

Ya I tried the 2 obsidian shards and sometimes it would proc three times a fight, but most of the time it would proc once every other fight..

But its starting to get ridiculous that I can get a mob to 80% on my own, a monk walks up and hits it ONCE and pulls aggro, it will be a blue mob, and i spam taunt until the thing is dead and I never take aggro back. I do not understand how aggro works in this game, which is what I'm hoping someone can fill me in on.

[Gorgetrapper]

You can ONLY taunt mobs that are DB to you and lower, anything even con and above it will fail. Taunt ONLY sticks you at the top of the agro list (if it succeeds). So you want to time your taunts before your next round of attacks so it can boost you up much higher than normal. If you just spam taunt hoping it'll work, you'll still be fighting for agro against everyone.

[Seaweedpimp]

You can ONLY taunt mobs that are DB to you and lower, anything even con and above it will fail. Taunt ONLY sticks you at the top of the agro list (if it succeeds). So you want to time your taunts before your next round of attacks so it can boost you up much higher than normal. If you just spam taunt hoping it'll work, you'll still be fighting for agro against everyone.

The truth

[Mojorisin]

Good luck pulling aggro from monks. I would say your best bet would be to jack up your dexterity for procs. You will never out-damage a monk, so you have to improve your rate of procs. Kunark is released in a month, and shortly after that (or on release, not sure) taunt will work on reds. So that's nice.

[guineapig]

Use your kick and slam/bash immediately after you taunt to further boost you up the agro list. You SHOULD have agro at that point. Then REFRAIN from using taunt until you loose agro again. (You may continue to use kick and slam/bash however to try and keep yourself high on the hate list).

Basically, spamming taunt only means that your chances of taunt being available the moment you loose agro will be very low which adds precious seconds before you can attempt it again.

Of course everything I say is completely null and void if you never had agro to begin with.

On a side note perhaps some of the blame lies with the other people in your group. If the monk isn't using FD when he gains agro and rogue isn't using evade then they are basically bad players that don't understand the group mechanics and their roles in it.

All that being said you will still pretty much NEED a weapon that procs most if not all of the time in your main hand.

[DevGrousis]

Good luck pulling aggro from monks. I would say your best bet would be to jack up your dexterity for procs. You will never out-damage a monk, so you have to improve your rate of procs. Kunark is released in a month, and shortly after that (or on release, not sure) taunt will work on reds. So that's nice.

what a monkly thing to say lol

[fugazi]

Taunt simply puts you on top of the aggro list with like +1 threat more than the former #1 on the list. Or something like that. So only use taunt when you <don't> have aggro, otherwise it doesn't do a thing. You can also use taunt on a mezzed mob from what I know, so use it a few times before breaking mezz and your chanter/bard might love you more.

As for weaponry, fast weaponry that is proc heavy. Every weapon has a different proc rate. Dex helps you proc more, but some weapons simply proc more - I think they made it so that every weapon has x amounts of proc per minute. I can't help you further with what is best, but gnoll lariats are absurd for getting and holding aggro. They do shitty damage as mentioned, but for aggro, they're king.

[guineapig]

Taunt simply puts you on top of the aggro list with like +1 threat more than the former #1 on the list. Or something like that. So only use taunt when you DON'T have aggro,


fixed... (using those symbols makes the words between them invisible :p)

[Seaweedpimp]

Also, you cant even proc those gnoll whips till the 30's?

[Gorgetrapper]

25

[Kassel]

Monks can dump aggro, tell them to stop being bad.

[Alkorin]

2 gnoll hide lariats, get SSoYs when you can. Period.

[Flank]

Ok well good to know they made taunt so dumb.. Andi will try out with knoll whips. But my question still is which holds aggro better. Higher damage or faster attacks

[leezard]

Depends. If faster attacks= more dps then faster attacks. If a higher damage wep = more dps then higher damage.

DPS=agro, for the most part. Taunt is meant to work WITH dps, not on its own.

[Krimsin]

Ok well good to know they made taunt so dumb.. Andi will try out with knoll whips. But my question still is which holds aggro better. Higher damage or faster attacks

You're going to get more variance and high burst damage with slower weapons. So while you might parse higher dps for a fight with slower weapons you run the risk of losing agro more often (multiple misses, enemy defenses, etc).

Behind procs, your best bet is fast, smooth damage for agro.

Now obviously if the DPS output difference gets absurd, you might take the slower weapon.